Turning an enquiry into a guest and a reservation
What converting an enquiry does in the Hospitality pack: one step creates the guest and the reservation, then the confirmation and pre-arrival form follow.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Hospitality businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Launching soon. The Industry CRM add-on described in this article is launching soon. This article describes it as it will work at launch.
Every guesthouse knows the moment an enquiry turns real: the caller says "yes, please book it". What happens in the next ten minutes decides whether the booking is handled once or three times. In many venues the details go into a diary, then onto a guest list, then into a confirmation e-mail typed from scratch, and a misspelt surname travels faithfully through all three.
Achekam's Industry CRM, with the Hospitality & hotels pack switched on, treats that moment as one step called converting. This article explains what conversion creates, what it sets in motion, and what to do with the enquiries that never become a stay, for hotels, lodges and guesthouses in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.
Where enquiries come from
A typical week brings enquiries through every door: a phone call to reception, an e-mail to the general address, a walk-in asking about weekend rates, a travel agent holding rooms for a client, a message on social media, and bookings made on booking sites.
The pack does not receive bookings from booking sites, and it does not check which rooms are free. It is not a property-management system or a channel manager. Staff enter booking-site reservations themselves, and the room calendar you already use stays the authority on availability. So the first habit is simple: record every enquiry as a lead on the day it arrives, whatever channel it came through, and check the room calendar before promising anything.
What to capture before you convert
Conversion copies what the lead holds, so a few minutes spent here saves retyping later:
- the guest's name, spelt the way it appears on their identity document;
- arrival and departure dates;
- the number of guests and rooms;
- an e-mail address, because the confirmation and the pre-arrival form go there;
- how they heard of you, for your own marketing records;
- whether this is a group or a long stay, which changes the paperwork.
Converting creates the guest and the reservation
Each industry pack sets the words the screens use, its record types, its pipelines and its workflows. In the Hospitality pack, customers are called Guests and the main record is a Reservation, which holds its guests and their stay dates.
When you convert a lead, the Industry CRM creates the guest and the reservation at the same time and starts the reservation's workflow. Nobody types the guest's details a second time, and the reservation is tied to the right person from the first minute.
Conferences, weddings and year-end functions are different. The pack keeps Event enquiries as their own record type, so a request for a venue and catering for eighty people should not be squeezed into a room reservation. Decide at the lead stage which of the two it is.
The booking confirmation and pre-arrival form
Once the reservation exists, its workflow takes over the routine paperwork. The pack sends the guest a booking confirmation and a pre-arrival form, so details such as arrival time, dietary needs or a cot for a toddler arrive before the guest does, not at the front desk.
For groups and long stays, the pack can have booking terms signed electronically. Those terms, like every agreement in the industry packs, are starter wording that you must review before use. Your cancellation rules, deposit terms and house rules are yours to set, and the starter text is only a beginning. The signing and group steps are explained in pre-arrival forms and group booking terms.
Provisional versus confirmed
A reservation moves from Enquiry to Provisional, Confirmed, In house and Checked out, or it is Cancelled with a reason. The two stages that cause the most confusion at reception are Provisional and Confirmed.
| Stage | What reception has done | What the guest has done |
|---|---|---|
| Provisional | Checked the room calendar and is holding the room | Shown real interest but not yet committed |
| Confirmed | Accepted the booking on the venue's terms | Committed, usually by paying whatever the venue asks for |
Write down a house rule for when a provisional hold lapses, and follow it. A room held for a guest who never replies is a room you cannot sell to someone who would.
The Industry CRM can also refuse to let a record move into certain stages until set conditions are met, such as a customer being named or an amount being set. That keeps the Confirmed list honest: a reservation cannot look further along than its details support.
If you take a deposit to confirm, know the rules on deposits and cancellations where you trade. In South Africa, section 17 of the Consumer Protection Act sets out when a supplier may take a reasonable deposit for a booking and what cancellation charge it may keep if the customer cancels. Nigerian and Kenyan venues should check the equivalent position with their own adviser.
Enquiries that do not convert
Not every lead deserves a reservation. Someone comparing rates across five lodges, a family who will "let you know", a company that wanted a price for next year's budget: converting these too early fills the guest list with people who never stayed, and makes the provisional bookings look healthier than they are.
A better routine:
- Keep the lead open while you follow up, with a note of what was quoted.
- Convert only when the guest agrees to dates and you have checked the room calendar.
- If a reservation that was converted falls through, cancel it and choose the reason that fits.
- Once a month, read the cancellation reasons and the leads that went quiet together.
The reasons tell you something useful. Guests lost on price point to your rates; guests who never answered point to how quickly you replied; guests who found the dates gone point to how long provisional holds were kept. The full set of stages is described in reservations from enquiry to check-out.
A practical start
When the pack goes live in your workspace, begin with the leads already in your diary or inbox. Enter each one, convert those that have agreed dates, and check that the confirmation reaches the guest as you expect. Then make converting the moment reception says "you're booked", so the guest, the reservation and the paperwork all start from the same record.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
